


the pieces gone, left the puzzle undone, is that the way it is?

by bloodredcherries



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 10:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredcherries/pseuds/bloodredcherries
Summary: You made me come here to a house filled with memories I joined a cult to get rid of because you needed a babysitter?





	the pieces gone, left the puzzle undone, is that the way it is?

“I don’t understand,” Alice said flatly, as she stood in front of what had formerly been her house, and stared at her boyfriend, her eyes bloodshot from crying and feeling entirely un-put-together. “You dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night because you said it was an  _ emergency _ that you needed my ‘expert advice’ to handle. You made me come here to a house filled with memories I joined a cult to get rid of because you needed a babysitter?” 

 

“It is an emergency,” FP said softly, and she felt him cup her chin in his hands, and she gazed at him with tired eyes. “Look, I just need you to babysit Jellybean,” he said. “I’m sorry that you had to come here to do it, I just...I can’t leave her alone, Alice.” 

 

Reluctantly, Alice followed him into the house, which, though the decor wasn’t entirely to her takes, had been mercifully redone. She bit back a sigh. It was really pathetic that (after all FP had done for her lately) she couldn’t push past her own fears and unease about spending the night in the house that she’d lived in for almost three decades, and so FP could feel comfortable going off and doing his job with his ten year old daughter still in the house. She wasn’t entirely certain why he and Gladys had gotten divorced -- she just knew that they had, and that that meant that there were nights when Betty crept over to Jughead’s and FP crept over to lay beside her in the soup can of a trailer he had let her move into when things had gone to hell with the farm -- FP had custody of both children, and she had heard from Betty and Jughead’s conversations that the younger Jones child was decidedly unhappy, and Gladys had turned tail and ran. 

 

It was typical of her. 

 

“Well, all right,” she said softly, and she shrugged her shoulders. “Where is she?” 

 

Alice had been introduced to Jellybean, of course, but she hadn’t really spent much time with the younger girl, save the fact that they had been forced to sit together at FP’s disaster of a birthday party, which -- she suspected -- the younger girl blamed for the aforementioned divorce. It had been awkward, to say the least. She had never been at a more painful social event. 

 

“Should be in bed,” he said, and he reached out and tousled her hair. “Look, Al, I know that this is asking a lot of you, I just don’t want JB here alone. You just have to stay here. You can knit!”

 

“No, it’s alright,” she insisted. “If we’re going to be together, openly, and you’re going to be living here, it makes sense for me to try to re-acclimate myself to the house. And I should get to know JB, too,” she said. “She’s your daughter.” 

 

She brushed a kiss to his lips. “Can you tell me what the emergency is?” 

 

Alice knew logically that there were things that FP couldn’t tell her about his role as Sheriff, and she respected that, now that she was no longer heavily involved in a cult and under the influence of rather potent drugs, that were masqueraded as multivitamins. She supposed that she should have been more suspicious of Edgar, and the farm, and of Polly’s grasp on mental stability (oh how she had dropped that ball there), but she had been hoodwinked. She had gone from having a troubled childhood, to being married fresh after giving away her (dead) son, to finding out that said husband that she had been married to for twenty five years had been a  _ serial _ killer. She had been lost, and Polly and Edgar had taken advantage of her and her mental state and tried to take her away from everyone (everything) that she’d known. 

 

It had only been after Elizabeth had gone to FP after her near-drowning by baptism that Alice had been read some form of a riot act and been forced into a clinic that Fred had recommended (how Fred knew these things, she didn’t entirely know, but she had decided not to ask) once the drugs that she had produced for FP had tested positive for Fizzle Rocks, of all the embarrassing things. She had been in the probationary period for her job at the station, so that had been taken away from her, and she was very, very, embarrassed by the past several months. She was surprised that anyone she was involved with was speaking to her.

 

“My idiot ex,” he mumbled. “Gladys, you see, was a very bad girl, and, unlike you, I saw no need to be lenient on her. She took my daughter out of state to use her as a drug runner, and then involved those idiot kids in her hair brained schemes. She almost got them all killed. I didn’t like what you did, Alice, but you were drugged. You were out of your mind. She knew damn well what she was doing.” 

 

“Where is she?” 

 

“They busted her over in Greendale. She was in the Mantle kid’s car. They took her and her accomplice in, but they want me to do the honors.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Look, babe, I don’t think she’ll give you any trouble. If she does, the next door neighbor will be a real help. Have you met him?”

 

“Very funny, FP,” Alice said. “I am not calling Frederick over to help me with a ten year old girl.”

 

“That’s the Alice I missed,” he said, and he pulled her into a one armed hug. “Okay, babe. I promise, I won’t be long.”

 

“Don’t worry,” she said, and she plastered on a smile, hoping to hide how nervous she was. “We’ll be fine.” 

 

She walked FP to the door, and closed it behind him, making sure to lock both the tumbler and the deadbolt, as she rationalized that one couldn’t possibly be too careful in the Sheriff’s home. Just because crime had dulled to a suspicious low in her time away at the treatment center (and her time that she had spent hiding away in Sunnyside, pretending that she didn’t exist and that she wasn’t an imposition on people, more specifically on Betty and FP, who still insisted that she was worthy of being taken care of) did not mean that Alice was stupid enough to think that Riverdale had returned to normal. She knew better, and she wasn’t going to jeopardize herself and Jellybean’s safety. 

 

That would be foolish. Long gone was any sort of form of Alice that embraced frivolity or foolishness. 

 

“Is he gone?” A female voice called from the top of the stairs, and Alice jumped about a mile. “My dad? Did he leave?” 

 

Thankfully for her sense of pride, the darkness seemed to have shrouded her moment of embarrassment from Jellybean. 

 

“Your father said you were in bed,” she said, trying to find the energy to express disapproval. Alice was frankly emotionally exhausted. It was hard enough for her to come to the house, let alone attempt responsible parenting. “I take it you thought that your babysitter would be some sort of source of amusement to you? Elizabeth, perhaps? I’m sorry to disappoint you, I’m not very fun at all.” 

 

“No, Dad told me that it was you,” the girl replied, as she came down the stairs, clad in pajamas. “Well, he said ‘my girlfriend, JB, you’ve met her’, but who else could that have been? You’re the only girl that he really talks to. Or about. Unless he’s complaining about my mom when he doesn’t know I’m spying on him.” 

 

She hopped the last step, and Alice forced herself to relinquish her death grip on the door handle, choosing instead to maintain what she hoped was an expression of polite benevolence, one that was befitting of her boyfriend’s daughter. 

 

“You shouldn’t be spying on your father,” Alice chided. It was impolite to spy, at least, it was impolite to encourage the children to do so. 

 

“That’s what my shrink says,” Jellybean said with a shrug. “Dad makes me go to one, I think it’s hella lame. All mom did was use me as a drug mule.” 

 

“It’s not lame,” she told her. “Your father, he cares about you, he wants you to be okay with what happened to you.” 

 

“Yeah, well, that’s Dad,” she said. “He thinks that’s possible. Mom and I were best friends until she just ditched me here to live in lame ass Riverdale, with my suddenly lame ass father. Sheriff Jones. What a joke.” 

 

Alice worried her lip. She really didn’t know what her position was supposed to be in her new role of FP’s girlfriend, but she really didn’t know if she really wanted the young girl to badmouth her father. That was impolite. FP had managed the miracle of becoming the Sheriff, and she wanted to ensure that he maintained that role, and didn’t give it away based on the whims of his child. 

 

“He wasn’t a bad dad,” Jellybean added, as she grabbed Alice by the hand and tugged her into what had previously been Alice’s formal parlor, and currently...appeared to be some sort of replica of the Wyrm, minus the bar and with the addition of furniture made in the last decade and a gigantic television that shared the focal point of the room with a pool table. While the slight shred of propriety that she still had insisted that she was gazing into an eye sore (especially given that she had sold the house as is! Where had all of her expensive things gone?) the greater part of her was merely amused. “Before Mom and I left. He used to take me riding on his bike and stuff like that. He stayed home with us. Now he’s the Sheriff, and he can never do anything fun with me ever again.” 

 

“Why do you say that?” Alice questioned, as Jellybean sat down on the nearest piece of furniture, and she delicately lowered herself down beside her. “Just because he’s the Sheriff doesn’t mean that you can’t do fun things with him, JB. He can still take you out on the bike and stuff. You could...play pool here?” 

 

“It’s just lame,” she pouted. “I don’t like it here on the Northside. Even though Dad changed things here I still miss home.”   


“Toledo?” 

 

“No, the trailer. I know that you and Betty live there now,” she said. “I just don’t understand why we can’t either.”

 

“This is  _ good _ for you and Jughead, for your dad,” Alice insisted. “I know that you don’t like living on the Northside, in truth, I’m not entirely comfortable with it, either, but your father wants you to do well for yourself, JB. He wants you to have opportunities. Being the Sheriff is a big deal for him because he  _ never _ had opportunities of his own like you and Jughead could.” 

 

“He doesn’t drink anymore,” she said in response. “I guess that’s good.” 

 

“I know,” Alice said. “It is good. We should be proud of him.” She sighed. “Your dad, he’s always wanted the best for you, and for Jughead. I know that you’ve been lead to believe otherwise, but I swear to you, no matter what your mother said, that’s the truth.” 

 

“I know it is,” she said. “Mom said a lot of things to me, but, I know that Dad loves me. Even though he probably shouldn’t.” 

 

“What do you mean by that?”   
  


“Why should he love me after what Mom tried to have me do to him?” JB asked. “I could have ruined everything for him, and he just...he told me that it was okay and that he knew that it wasn’t my fault. But it was, wasn’t it? I could have stopped her.” 

 

“You’re ten,” she said. “You couldn’t have. It shouldn’t have been your responsibility.” 

 

“That’s what Betty said.”

 

“She’s a smart girl,” she told her. “You’d do right to listen to her.” She sighed. “You should probably go to bed, JB.”   
  


“Why?” 

 

“I just...I think that’s what would be best,” she said. “But, tell you what? You can watch a movie with me,” she said. “And when we hear your dad come home, it’s straight to bed.” 

 

“That’s cool. Can I pick?” 

 

“Of course. Pick whatever you want.” 


End file.
